, the office manager of A.J. Novella, said the 60-year-old Danbury hauling company may be at risk because it is being forced to dump its garbage at the White Street transfer station at an extra cost of $12 per ton over Bridgeport, where it used to dump.
"Our drivers are fighting to get in there. They're being given a hard time. If they find a tire in the trash by accident, we're being charged $90 a ton," Russo said.
The typical fee for a ton of household waste is $74.56, according to a newly approved contract with the
Housatonic Resources Recovery Authority
. That's $12 more than the haulers were charged to dump in Bridgeport, Russo said.
Russo said the extra $12 per ton is a huge problem, as is the new contract, which forces him to bring the garbage to White Street.
"That's not right. That's basically flow control, and flow control is illegal," Russo said.
Flow control was the rule in the early 1990s when towns told haulers exactly where to dump the trash.

James Galante
, who owns the White Street transfer facility, said if someone tries to put tires, propane tanks, demolition debris or other nonhousehold trash into the household waste system, they are stopped at the transfer station. Those items can be dumped, but they cost more.
"If you're bringing in appropriate material, there's never a problem," Galante said. "What it sounds like to me is their problem isn't with Jimmy Galante. It's with the Housatonic authority and its contract."
Russo said Novella has been dumping at the Wheelabrator Bridgeport trash-to-energy plant without a problem.
"We've been dumping in Bridgeport at the burn facility for 10 years," Russo said. "I don't know what changes they made, but last week we were turned away."
After 10 years without a contract, the Housatonic Resources Recovery Authority put a new contract into effect July 1.
HRRA covers 10 Danbury-area towns, and the contract says trash in Ridgefield and Redding must be brought to Ridgefield for transfer to Bridgeport. It says trash in Newtown and Brookfield must be brought to Newtown for transfer to Bridgeport, and trash from the remaining towns must be brought to Danbury for transfer to Bridgeport. Haulers can no longer dump trash directly at the Wheelabrator Bridgeport plant.
Haulers are free to drive the trash outside the region, if they want, which is how the contract avoids the illegal practice of flow control. But the contract does restrict the haulers to certain transfer stations within the region.

Rudy Marconi
, first selectman of Ridgefield and HRRA chairman, said the old contract expired 10 years ago, and nobody enforced it after it expired. He said the Bridgeport loophole was only temporary.
Marconi said
Robert Palmer
of HRRA offered to visit the White Street facility Monday with the Novella trucks to make sure they didn't have a problem.
"Bob said he'd be there first thing in the morning, if they wanted," Marconi said.
"I told him no," Russo said. "That's just a temporary fix. They'd behave themselves for the time he's around and then they'd go back to their old ways."